2016 SEO Basic to Advanced

eldran said:

is sent this thread to josh for his comment. this was his response:

Hey eldran

I never said links don't count anymore at all

I said d0 f0ll0w links IMO are a greatly reduced signal , being replaced over time by user actions tracked by rankbrain - i think Rand and Limbocher have proven that fairly conclusively

and they [google] are tracking more than just d0 f0ll0ws - i am ranking sites (and i have colleagues rankings sites) using nofollows and straight text mentions (and offsite reviews and ratings, which are much safer to get - which you saw in my 2015 video

so, can you rank with links? yeah, of course! IF you also have quality (because then rankbrain will flush you down the toilet anyways)

are d0 f0ll0ws the only or best or most important signal?

No. the data says no.

at least not in the sites i am seeing, or the leaks i am getting from googlers (yes i still know and talk to them)

but i do mostly white hat shit

and yeah, i so SEO for a living, so yeah i am going to push my services

but consider that means i need to have to be RIGHT (most of the time) in my SEO theories, or my clients would leave, and my fans would not rank

my clients and fans do rank - time and again they come back and thank me for my free advice and cite me as the reason why they are ranking

i have to make sure my SEO theories are mostly accurate or i don't sleep at night because i have no clients anymore and or a guilty conscience bc i advised them wrong (you know about my ethics background - i am one of those assholes with a conscience)

also, notice that it is often people who sell d0 f0ll0ws who say they are still the biggest factor... or people who just don't like change

so you can put that on the forum if you like - my only concern is that i know young people are on BHW often and are trying to make money and i feel bad they are still getting ye olde black hat advice from 2008 from people who just want to sell them links, and or are just haters and hate anything i say or any new algo to exploit

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so there is his response

{editted by me bc BHW ws erplacing some of his words "d0 f0ll0w"}

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